Ugh, what a chore....

 This Subaru will be the death of me....

A couple weeks ago, while heading to work I was driving straight thru an intersection when some dude in a CRV decides he doesn't want to make a left turn anymore and pulls out into my path.  It was a good one, 2 feet on the brake pedal and missed him by an inch. 

At the next stop sign, WHOA the brake pedal goes to the floor, major ass pucker!  There's enough residual to get stopped but its a sure sign of a leak in the lines or a popped flex hose.  Turn around and limp home.

So I redid all the rear lines as they popped at a junction under the back seat pan beside the fuel tank.  The lines are all sheathed in plastic (even where routed inside the car) but are cut back at the flare nuts and rot out where exposed.  The junction is in a place where it is protected from debris but not moisture. C'est domage.

So way we go to fix it, didn't think much of it, but when backing out of the driveway the front left tire rubs on the mudflap but I dismiss it as a bad control arm which probably broke the rubber with the emergency stop.  I drive it for a few days and yeah the backing up gets worse.  So I give the tire a kick, and WHOA it moves back and hits the mudflap.  yikes. I get the flashlight out and the top of the subframe is totally missing by the rear control arm mount and the top shroud has broken away as well.

You don't know how much I f^ckin hate this car.

Now, I like to spreadsheet all of my cars.  I like to service them, and repair them and divide the costs over the life of the car and try to get the monthly cost to under $200 per month.  I put EVERYTHING, in the spreadsheet.  If I get a stack of washers from Home Depot, it goes in the total.  I've been successful in the past with the Mk4 Jetta, the Mk1 Cabrio and even the 84 GLI sitting in the garage, even the mk5 (but it was a $0 gift from my mother so that skews it)  The Bug, Accord and Subie are way over.  The Bug for obvious reasons as it was a major restoration, and the Accord because I''ve only had it briefly and it carried a high purchase price of $5000.  The Subie...has no excuse.  It was purchased for $1250.  In retrospect, it seems that no maintenance has ever been done to it, and the fact that the underbody is still mostly black paint with minimal rust is because it was probably a hangar queen.

So, were at a fork in the road however, the rusting subframe issue is very common.  Every car north of St. Louis will eventually succumb to subframe rot if not taken out by an accident ...every one.  The subframes were never sprayed with any kind of protectant, and were painted not dipped.  The way they rust however, is similar to the bug's framehead issue where they rot from the inside out because the internal surfaces get damp and can't dry quickly.  They typically start to show pinholes in the sides that don't look drastic at all, like this; 

Notice the abundance of original black paint.  Experience would say that this frame is in good condition, but remember its eating itself from the inside out.  The top where it broke was literally paper thin...

So, in Canada there isn't alot of options for replacing the subframe.  There is nowhere in Canada where a magic amount of Outbacks drive around on dry, salt free roads so the market for used subframes is very very high and stock very very sparse.  Wrecking yards grab replaced frames off expired Outbacks and charge $700 plus for them, because they know.  In the US, its not as bad because you can get a used subframe shipped up to your local wrecking yard for peanuts as there are plenty of rust free, dry states to get a very good and cheaper frame from. And this aftermarket drives down the price of a new subframe as well, to around $500 US.

Of course I have little option.  Shipping and tariffs (gotta love those) will erase any benefit and so I bite the bullet and buy a brand new one from the dealer....$1295 plus tax.  Did I mention my love for Subaru?  

So going back to the speadsheet, this makes the Subie currently at $617 per month....basically a new car lease.  Bruh.  Did I mention I just bought a 2013 Ford Focus for my eldest daughter?  Because I like punishment...and can't pass up cheap.  Hopefully you never hear about this one, because its doing a good job...

Subaru postscript

 Yeah I'm not sold.

I thought I had the Outback squared away before the winter but that hasn't panned out.  Let me preface this by saying she's a baller in the snow!  Alot like a quattro in her handling in the white stuff, but as far as the vehicle itself, it's kinda weak.

Firstly, she likes to leak....alot!  There hasn't been a week where there isn't something dripping out.  

Secondly, she doesn't like the highway, 130 km/h its maxed out, and running for a couple hours like that and she'll chew up a liter of oil.

And then axles, they are not very strong.  Once they start clicking they'll be junk within a couple weeks of normal driving.  I used to run mk2s for MONTHS before I got around to changing a clicking CV.  I attribute that to their inner CV design.  It starts clunking and won't shut up.  The VWs inner CVs are much stronger and I never had an issue with those. (only the outers)

So, there won't be anything other than service for this vehicle.  I won't be doing the subframe or anything big, I'll just fix things until an upset limit is reached.  Once the tires are worn, she gets parted out and scrapped.

I'm also not sold on the CVT.  The shiftpoints were designed by a committee of 5 year olds, shifting at ridiculous times.  On the highway, I usually slap it into manual 6 'gear' but that goes flat on the smallest of hills. It really is terrible, I don't know how so many people defend these transmissions.  And then the CVT fluid, WOW, it costs $33 per liter and you need at least 8L for a flush, or 12L for a full dump and refill.  Like pouring fine wine in there!  I did the flush once, and will never do it again for this car.

I thought I could use the engine in the Outback for a possible swap candidate for the Bug, but no.  I won't jump thru engine swap engineering hoops to put such an uninspiring engine in the bug.  Yes it would make the Bug boogie down the road, but winding out at 4500 rpm and 1/2L per hour of oil consumptions?  No thanks.

I do like the SUV aspect though, it might be difficult to go back to cars like the Jetta and Accord.  The cavernous trunk, and high trunk floor are hard to ignore. Heiser loves the back area where he can both walk around and lie down.

On the VW front;  I had a good discussion with a VW guru with respect to the Bug, and we'll put a sump filter in and regulate the amounts of babbit in the oil.  hopefully it will clear and we can get past this.  Otherwise the engine will have to come back apart.

The Jetta; I will have to get it more weatherproofed, bodywork and paint. I'm running out of time here, I have to sh^t or get off the pot.  The garage is not moisture free and she needs a coat of paint.  She runs, but I need to get Chris at Autobahn to tweak the CIS so I can run it without lambda, he's done it before so hopefully he can do it again. She really is close I just need to focus on her for a solid month.

I've also been seeing guys on YouTube use handheld electric spray guns for car painting with pretty good results.  Canadians "Rusted Rides" and "Paintucation by Kevin Tetz" both used those guns with amazing results.  Even using Tremclad!  Time to get off my ass.

The Betrayer

 The Betrayer...

It really is difficult to abandon an auto manufacturer when you have relied on them for 30+ years.  The only thing that did in all my old VWs was time, and road salt....with the exception of the mk5 Jetta.  It was noisy, dirty and not a high quality build like the mk4s and older.  I was happy to sell the 06 TDI on.  VW has not carried the torch the last decade or so, as their quality has waned so it was time to try something else.  Sorry VW, you have lost your way...

Last July I bought a 2010 Accord from an old couple from Stratford.  It is very well cared for, and I immediately changed the timing chain and some sundry things to get a baseline set for reliability.  It is a nice comfortable car, but one of the biggest issues is fitting my 6' frame.  I have to set the seat all the way to the back of the track, and extend the steering wheel all the way out because the pedals are not set far enough underneath like VW does.  Not a huge deal, but if I decide to upgrade to a newer Gen Accord, it will be a deal breaker if the pedal layout is the same.

So, I finished building the new motor for the Bug last summer, and while everything is good on that front, it works well (albeit I have to check for a rear main or cam cap leak....grrr) but I added up all the receipts on the build.  $5000....folks, that's $100 per HP and it really is unacceptable.  I really should have thought it through.  That was dumb...

One of the cheapest power upgrades for the old air cooled VWs is with Subaru power.  With a $1000 Kennedy adapter, you can jump another 100HP in stock form.  Yes, yes there's more to it than that, but with the removal of the spare tire well already, there's space up front in the bug for a radiator.

Where am I going with this?

So here it is.  I just bought a 2011 Subaru Outback for $1250 that the PO says needs head gaskets.  I chose this model because it has no turbo, and single overhead cams and will fit the VWs engine bay with minimal sheet metal work...and only a modest bump in HP to 165 meaning I can use the stock trans and clutch.  The oil is not chocolate milk, so the head gasket swap should be no big deal.  But I took it for a 1 hour jaunt and there's no sign of over-pressurizing the coolant, no hard hoses, no bubbling in the rad, no leaks.  weird.  I'm gonna chalk it up that it was showing early signs on the hottest days.  I'm gonna go ahead and do the rear wheel bearings (they're BAAAD) and get a safety check and start driving it.  It seems to be in really good shape, very little rust and no codes on the OBD either.  My friend CJ brought over his spare floor mats from his Forrester, so that'll save me some bucks. (PO took them, WTF?) 

So after some years of driving, I'll strive to keep at least the motor in this thing pristine, understanding that this motor and harness may eventually go in the bug....to create the SUBERBEETLE! Yeah the personalized plates are still available for that, go figure...

Selling the stock VW engine should net me $3000 grand back, so that doesn't hurt as much and maybe someday I can feel a bit smarter.... ;) 

Thank you Tenk!

 After weeks of looking around for a machine shop, I returned with hat in hand to BH&P to see Dave and plead with him to do the work.  Alas, he still said NO, (rather quickly?) but he did point me to Tenk Machine on Third St in London.  So off I went (in my new Honda daily driver...yes I said Honda) to Tenk with the crank and flywheel.

The New Daily...the first chink in the VW armour

I went to the office door and it was locked, so I went around the corner to the main rollup door and saw all the machines toiling away in the shop.  There were pallets of yokes, jigs and grapple grommets all around making this place look VERY busy so I set my expectations low that they could help lil old me.

So I stood there (in the 30+ degree heat...props to the dudes working in there!) for 5 mins or so until someone approached me.  I explained my dilemma with the mating of the Chinese 8 doweled crank to the 8 doweled flywheel, and this older bald fella overheard and said "OOOOH a challenge!"  and took my stuff to take a look and get back to me.

I followed up by popping in a week later where (I didn't catch the bald guys name....D'Oh!!) he said "I can press these together with the press right now" and I said "um, no a 2 piece crank seal ain't a good idea" so he laughed and said he could ream them so I can shimmy them off as I wasn't concerned with a wedge fit on a 60hp car.  A couple days later I picked them up with a glove-like fit!  Only $60 to boot!

FINALLY!

So I went ahead with finishing the rotating assembly.  I tried heating up the cam gear and it was too tight on the snout so I popped it off before it cooled.  I thought I had a good idea to put the crank in the freezer, and heat the cam gear on the stove and it did still go on tight (but went on) but the crank started to sweat profusely afterwards and I was frantically trying to stop all the water forming on the surface as it came back up to room temp.  Good idea?  nope.  Like trying to keep an ice cold glass of ice tea from forming water on the outside of the glass!!  Uggh

I wanted to finish the connecting rods this weekend as well, but the weather wasn't cooperating.  So I found a bin, and assembled the rotating assembly on the kitchen table ala Rube!  M'eh, it works. Its all really tight (tolerance) and rotates freely in the case, so stoked!!!  Now to install the cam, and close the case up!

Kostenfalle

 The Money Pit

Arghh, so frustrating!  Its been nothing but setbacks! (for the Bug)

Firstly, the machine shops in my City aren't all that keen for doing anything that won't net them a grand of cash it seems.  BH&P only wants to rebuild your high cost American engines and parts, so they recommended V&C Machine that might be able to help.  Humberto was more than happy a couple years ago to help me out, he made a few close tolerance shims for me, and straightened the sway bar for the Super but I went back the other day to get my 4 hole flywheel drilled for 8 dowels, and found out he sold the business to someone who only wants to water/flame cut steel and doesn't have the desire (or indexer) to use his mill/lathe to drill/ream my holes for me.  Ughhh

Here's the new 69mm counterweighted (but 8 doweled) crank.  I really wanted to keep the stock 18lb flywheel to make some massive rolling mass; heavy flywheel, counterweighted crank, and 5lb pulley!  But alas its not to be.  There are literally NO full weight flywheels with the SPG 8 dowel drilled setup.  They are all 12 or 13lbs drilled.  Nobody's stoopid enough to build a mild-mannered engine (like me) instead wanting to have a lighter flywheel for better spin up and launching.  So I give up, and ordered a 13lb Chromoly 8 dowel flywheel.

Then there's all the know-it-alls on Youtube out there that say "oh you have to pull all the gallery plugs and clear the crud out from the oil galleys whenever you reuse an old case" so like a sheep I pulled the larger 2 plugs only to find pristine clean galleys underneath. Ughhh why!!!

They probably should have qualified with "if you have any junk in the sump or debris in the oil groove on the back of the main bearings, you need to remove the plugs" cuz I really didn't want to do this.  So I had to drill and tap for 3/8 NPT plugs, but now I have to pump out all the clean galleys which are now full of magnesium chips....Grrrr

So, to go back and revisit May's post, you see the rot in the bottom of the sump that is eating, not only at the magnesium, but also at my Psyche as it bothers me that the repair (JB Weld) will be submerged in oil and will probably fail.  

Well, as luck has it, there's a gent in Woodstock with a brand new case for sale that I ended up buying anyway, which saved me $600 over new, but still $1400 out of pocket.  Uggghh!

Kostenfalle! (Money Pit!)

BLING!

On the GLI front.... SHE RUNS! And pretty well actually.  It starts hard, but we can get it to idle so I can start to check vacuum leaks etc. I think the cold start valve is dead, I'll have to try and resurrect it.  I was struggling to get it running for a bit, but that banjo filter from Grey Goose did the trick! The clogged screen in the WUR was aggravating the situation!  I just received some 3M panel adhesive in the mail, time to seal up those gutter and start body/paint!

So I have been mentioning the desire to get these projects done so they can move under their own power to possible a new (smaller) house in the new year, but real estate has taken a hit lately, so I might be stuck here for a bit...but let's not take our foot off the gas and get the GLI at least reassembled this year!

The Bug gets more attention (whore)

Started into the bug again with favourable May weather.  I cracked the case literally!  But the contents have me perplexed.

 Getting 'pit crew' good at pulling the motor...

Back during 'Phase 1' in 2020, I opted to pull apart the top end of the engine and do the top end rebuild only, seeing as I could get good end play which is an indicator of a good engine.  But I found the #2 rod was sticky on the crank, not loose like the other 3, so I pulled a rod off a scrap shortblock and put it on.  I couldn't do a proper check of clearances, as I was swapping them without removing the crank, and could only check tolerance by 'feel'.  The longevity of the engine at this point, was 50-50 at best because of this compromise.

What was perceived as a 'knock' during startup developed around 3000 km of use, I say 'perceived' because when I pulled the engine apart fully this week, could find no evidence of loose parts that would cause any contact/knock.  I pulled all the rods off the crank, and all the journals look beauty, like REALLY good.  Even #2 only has some light scuffing, nothing that would catch a fingernail.  weird.

I even checked all the journals against the wear limit of 2.1641" and they're all above that.  Double weird.  The case halves are even tight, and the mating faces are super clean, which makes me think that this is a VERY low mile engine as all the internals are VW stamped, even the bearings and the case has never been split!  The cam bearings and lobes look mint.  Triple weird.

So I went ahead and cleaned the AS41 case and inspected it.  The thrust surfaces are also like new and still stock cut.  It sure is nice to start with a clean slate.  I could've easily reused the crank and rods, but CIP has a huge sale on right now with a cheap cast counterweighted crank and stock rods at half price.  May as well replace it all.  So far, we're $800 in on this round.

There is one big problem though, she sat for a very long time with water in the sump and the area around the sump screen plate is very corroded, and might need some JB weld. It almost makes the case scrap...

I also split the spare AS21 fuel injected case I had sitting around.  While the exterior is not as corroded, the main bearing is super worn, and someone scratched the mating surfaces with sandpaper.  Grrrrr! The sump is also riddled with blue RTV silicone.  I might use the 26mm oil pump out of this one, as by the looks of the main bearings, might have a newer pump due to the obvious struggle to maintain oil pressure.  This case definitely needs line bore/thrust cut before use.  I might use it for a 74/90.5mm build, who knows.

At any rate, both the Bug and GLI will have to be able to move under their own power by the end of summer, no excuses, as we'll probably be moving to a smaller house in 2025.  Sad, but has to be done...

BTW, say hi to the newest addition to the family, Heiser!  A 1 year old rescue Shepsky.  He's fitting right in!  We had to put Deena down in January....so Heiser has big shoes to fill!

The Age of Reckoning...

 Well, after 6 months of for sale posting of the bug and Jetta, I think the powers at be are trying to tell me something.

I'm not sure its a seller or buyer's market for used vehicles, but if I can't sell a certified, rust free 72 bug for $5000 there's some undercurrent going on.

Same goes for the $2500 GLI project, not one single bite.

I recently stumbled on the Grey Goose channel on YT, and it put to ease some of my struggles with CIS.  Martin going thru the system, breaking each item down step by step to explain their function and shortcomings along the way.  He singlehandedly has given me hope after all, so much so I actually took a CIS dizzy apart and dropped it into the ultrasonic.  Here is his channel.  The audio sucks, but the info is invaluable!

Grey Goose Restorations

I think I'm going to try to build a test bench myself, seeing as I have 4 dizzys kicking around, may as well test them and run 80 psi of cleaner thru them all.

As for the bug, I'll pull the engine soon to look at that (possible) offending connecting rod.  I can't see that this engine has more than 10,000 miles since rebuild, so I might be able to drop in a new crank and rods.  Who knows. Let the forensics begin!